Home is what you come back to.

I’m pretty sure that New York makes more sense coming than going.

What is it about that skyline that somehow, through the clouds and setting sun reflecting off the Empire State building, screams home? Because you have to leave a place sometimes in order to remember how much you love it (absence really does make the heart grow fonder?).

3,000 miles away across the country for a few days was long enough for me to realize that I am, and always will be, in a New York state of mind. Distant cities always hold the possibility that I’ll find what I’m looking for once I get there, but somehow I’m always let down (so much expectation and disappointment you’d think I’d have learned by now).

Sure, after 5 and a half hours smashed against the window next to a woman who does nothing but snore and kiss her girlfriend and hold her hand during turbulence, and constantly adjust herself and ask you ridiculously personal questions ("No, I don’t think your friend should be pressuring you into having baby just because you’re nearing forty," and "I guess I never really thought about falling in love with someone who already had a kid," and "Yes, you did just elbow me in the arm...again,") - you can be ready to jump out into just about any city in the world.
(What is it about tight enclosed spaces that makes people want to become best friends? I’d much rather spend that time floating at 29,000 feet with my life hanging in the balance, looking out over the passing states - Pennsylvania, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada... - and have some time to myself. think).

And California is too sunny with too many barren hills and too much open sky that it makes me feel uncomfortable. Where are all the tall buildings? Where are all of the angry people with purpose? Why does everyone walk so slow? Why doesn’t anyone honk their horns here when they drive? I could never make it. I’m much too cynical and bitter and realistic to ever be happy in such a place.

All I know about home is that it means a whole manner of things depending on who you are and where you’ve come from. It’s always shifting, roots uprooting and replanting in different cities and houses and apartments and rooms and streets all over the world (though I’m pretty sure that we’re all looking for the same thing to return to at the end of the day). I figure I’m always disappointed because I’ve already found my place.

Grass-is-greener isn’t always a good mentality to have, because you can spend so much time looking for something that might be better, that you lose sight of how great you’ve already got it. Give me the powerful streets of Manhattan, with their endless, streaming chorus of strong voices and passions any day.

Like anything else you choose to come back to in life, Manhattan makes more sense coming than going (what a thing to miss something that's been under your nose the whole time!) - and oh how happy I was to be home.